Ten years ago, someone tried to make a real-life Gossip Girl - this is what happened.
2006, they said, was the year of the socialite - “they” being the creators of Socialite Rank, a real-life Gossip Girl that documented the comings & goings of Manhattan’s latest batch of rich girls.
But it was far from being just another web PR-haven, rather, it was a high society ’Hot or Not’, with each couple of weeks welcoming a new ranking of the Top 25 socialites du jour.
But money wasn’t all you needed, instead, you needed to be the full package, which included:
1). Personal Styles & Designer Relations (1-20 pts)
2). Press Coverage in Major Publications & Gossip Columns (10 pts)
3). Appearances & Commitments to Events (10 pts)
4). Hot Factor - What makes each of the individuals sizzle with personality (10 pts)
And if you didn’t have it all, consider yourself dunzo - or, if you were lucky enough, you could squeeze into their “Don’t kill yourself, you almost made it,” an equivalent to Billboard’s Bubbling Under.
But with such strict requirements, could anybody be the ideal socialite? The answer is yes, look no further than the site’s 2006 ’Socialite of the Year’: Tinsley Mortimer.
From Day One, the site doubled as a hellish pit of narcissism & bitchery, and as a shrine to Tinsley Mortimer - a Virginia-born socialite who married into the uber-wealthy Mortimer family in 2002. Her popularity grew throughout the early-00s as she livened up the Manhattan social scene with her bright Eolise-inspired attire and Hilton-lite personality, and soon she was even walking runways alongside it-girls like Nicky & Bijou. She even designed a handbag line for Samantha Thavasa, which was so big in Japan that her face was plastered all over billboards in Tokyo.
While the Mortimer elders were far from approving of Tinsley’s avid search for publicity, the 10021 was charmed - especially Socialite Rank.
Following Tinsley at No. 2, and sometimes even swiping the top spot from her, was Fabioloa Beracasa, daughter of Veronica Hearst & armed with a Karl Lagerfeld internship & stint at Christian Dior under her belt. Her and BFF Tinz dominated the NYC social scene and could be spotted together at every gala, premiere, and Fashion Week show throughout the mid-00s.
Other society fixtures who found themselves ranking impressively high were Patty Hearst’s daughter Lydia, & cousin Amanda, Donald Trump’s daughter Ivanka, socialite-turned-designer Tory Burch, fashion-house heiress Margherita Missoni, jewelry designer Zani Gugelmann, fashion it-girl Genevieve Jones, cosmetics heiress Olivia Chantecaille, Damon Dash’s wife Rachel Roy, and bottled-water heiress Lauren Davis (now Santo Domingo) - who was so outraged by the site that she allegedly tried to hire a private investigator to expose the catty anonymous bloggers.
In the months following SR’s April 2006 debut, the media, too, started to pick up on the socialite craze. With the ’firecrotch’-laden brawling between Hilton & Lohan raging on in Hollywood, it seemed only logical to pick up on the glamour - and drama - of the girls who hadn’t yet made it to the paparazzi hub. By the end of the year, VH1 was developing an episode of The Fabulous Life Of… on New York’s glamour girls, and channels like MTV and E! were in talks to give SR’s elite - Tinsley & co. - their own reality shows!
As the popularity of the site grew, the socialites’ own fixation with it became unbreakable. When the sites’ creators asked for the girls to fill out a brief profile on themselves, nearly everybody returned the favor.
Lydia Hearst, especially, was rumored to have sent dozens of emails campaigning for herself in hopes of raising her fortnight ranking. But with everybody watching, paranoia grew.
The website’s bio read: “Next time you think about skipping that certain gala, wearing that unknown designer, dating some weird band member, beware. We’re watching. And your ranking is on the line!”
Distrust spread among the social elite as many feared something they’d say - even to a friend in confidence - would end up on the internet burnbook the following day, with a pack of ruthless commenters ripping them to shreds. The insanity of it all was soon heightened by the tale of one unlucky girl, an ambitious 20-year-old debutante who had begun catching the eyes of the gala circuit and Patrick McMullan: Olivia Palermo.
Olivia was a New School student whose rise began simultaneously with Socialite Rank’s. In the spring of 2006, she started making gala appearances alongside her friend, and fellow SR fixture, Byrdie Bell. But as Olivia’s popularity grew, high society retaliated. SR led the backlash by accusing her of being a social climber (~gasp~) and vying for Tinsley’s coveted spot in Manhattan’s hierarchy.
By early 2007, the virtual shaming of Olivia had reached an all-time high. When she sent out invitations to her Marquee-set 21st birthday bash - in a very Carrie move - the website parodied it by plastering Olivia’s likeness on a can of tuna, with a scathing question for its readers: “Is she a packaged can of tuna, a Chicken of the Sea?”
But the fishy diss wouldn’t hold a candle to what would happen next.
While many gossip hounds would’ve been busy catching up on the Anna Nicole paternity battle, or the daily Britney shenanigans, on March 27, SR readers received a scandalous blessing of Jamie-Lynn-pregnancy proportions. Earlier that day, the keyboard fiends behind the site received a letter, forwarded to them by not just one, but multiple people - a letter from none other than Olivia Palermo. Without hesitation, the SR team decided to share the gift sitting in their inbox with the world. Here’s the original post, screencapped/preserved by me for the sake of pseudo-celebrity history:
The story goes that the letter was sent to 70 socialites from an email supposedly belonging to Olivia. Immediately after it was published, however, Olivia declared that she never wrote it and that someone had impersonated her in hopes of besmirching her already negative reputation. As word spread of the desperate social plea, fellow Manhattanites labeled Olivia “white trash” and a “freak.” Quickly, she called daddy on her Blackberry and demanded that the family lawyer get their ass on the case and expose whoever wrote the ‘Scarlett Letter’ (as SR called it).
But the other socialites around town weren’t so sure it was a fake. Many theorized that Olivia wrote it, knowing it would get published, in hopes of scoring some much-needed sympathy points for herself in the press. Tinsley believed this too, and when the two girls had an encounter at a fashion show the following week, a Page Six report claimed an enraged Tinz elbowed Liv to the ground. SR, of course, praised Tinsley’s attack, but the act of it-girl warfare would be the site’s last bit of excitement.
On April 26th, 2007, a year after Socialite Rank had been founded, it was gone. The anonymous bloggers left a farewell message, promising a book titled The Year of the Rank, and a brief outline of the buzz the site had created since its inception, including dozens of interview requests (even one from Tyra - #bless her dedication to gossip), and reality show offers.
Many had speculated about the bloggers’ identities, some suggested it was Derek Blasberg, others Patrick McMullan, and some even suggested it was Tinsley’s brother-in-law Peter Davis. But a week after the site’s demise, New York Magazine outed - in its classic profile of the SR saga (which is 1,000,000x juicier than this lame post, READ IT!!) - that the bloggers were Russian socialite step-siblings Olga Rei and Valentine Uhovski.
Ten years after its creation, let’s take a look at where the site’s creators, and the many socialites they targeted, are now.
WHERE ARE THEY NOW?
(WARNING: Pictures of physical abuse are in the first section)
Tinsley Mortimer
Grab a box of tissues and start blasting Lucky by Brit Brit since you’re about to read a downward spiral.
The tale of Tinsley starts in her teenage years. While attending Lawrenceville, the Richmond native (and alleged descendant of Thomas Jefferson) met, and fell madly in love, with Topper Mortimer, a Standard Oil heir. The two became inseparable and eloped when they were only 18, but when his parents caught word of the union they shipped him off to the Dominican Republic to have it annulled.
But the annulment didn’t discourage the two; when Topper moved to New York to attend NYU, Tinsley took up refuge in Columbia. And in 2002, with their parents’ approval, they married again - and thus a society power couple was born.
During her early years in Manhattan, Tinsley had bounced from job to job. A beauty assistant at Vogue, an events planner, and eventually PR - but nothing enchanted her more than the idea of becoming a socialite.
A few committee positions later, and a borrowed dress or two, Tinz was on her way to becoming a New York it-girl. While most of her peers were much more demure, Tinz had a vibrancy to her. Her bright outfits, blonde hair, and carefree attitude slowly transformed her into Manhattan’s much-less scandalous answer to Paris Hilton.
By 2006, she was sitting front row at every fashion show, her comings & goings dutifully documented by Page Six, and SR crowned her ’Socialite of the Year’ - to which she responded by sending them a kind email of appreciation.
By 2008, she’d become Dior’s beauty ambassador, and a casting call hit the web for a reality show called “Society Girls” that many speculated was Tinsley’s TV debut. But a few months later, the project was scrapped and a source told Page Six that MTV “couldn’t use any of [the footage]. It’s collecting dust. She looked good but she just got dressed and went to parties everyday and didn’t have anything interesting to say.”
It would take a couple of years before Tinz got another chance at her own show, but in the meantime she appeared on Gossip Girl & made a cameo on Bravo’s Project Runway ripoff The Fashion Show:
As her fame grew, though, her marriage began to crumble. Topper told the New York Times in 2007:
“It’s not necessarily the type of goal that anybody should strive for, going out every night for the sake of self-promotion and getting their pictures taken.”
In early 2009, reports surfaced that the two had separated, the reasons being her love for attention - and his alleged affairs. For nearly two months, Tinz vanished from the spotlight, her visage stopped appearing on Patrick McMullan, and many speculated it was truly the end for society’s golden couple.
But finally she resurfaced - in the arms of Topper & life seemed worth living for a fleeting moment in time, but the reunion was short-lived. Tinsley began filming a pilot for her own reality show on The CW, and Topper couldn’t take anymore, so the two split for good and she ran off with a German prince named Casimir.
After a few months in Europe, she returned to New York to continue production on Empire State (which would later be called 'High Society’), but ran into a massive problem - none of her socialite friends wanted to be on it. Producers ended up paying randoms to play Tinz’s BFFs on the show.
When High Society aired in 2010, Tinsley’s it-girl status was demolished in one fatal blow. Between one of her costars casually admitting to using the N-word, to a load of staged catfights with Devorah Rose, Tinsley had reached Jersey Shore levels of desperation, and society shunned her as a result.
With her reputation in flames, Tinsley pulled a L.A. Candy and released a thinly-veiled novel about her experiences in society titled Southern Charm in 2012.
After a brief promo tour, she fled New York for Palm Beach where she sunk deep into alcoholism, struggled with an eating disorder, and embarked on a secretive relationship with Nico Fanjul, son of sugar baron Alexander Fanjul. The two kept their affair confined to late-night hookups at his home, due to his family’s disapproval of Tinz.
The relationship, though, was far from healthy. The first police report on the couple dates back to Christmas Day 2013. Tinsley was hospitalized that night for a “possible battery” that ended up requiring three staples in the back of her head. She told police she tripped and fell.
On New Year’s Eve, police were called again to Nico’s home, this time Tinsley had locked herself in his bedroom and cried that she was scared of him. After determining that she was drunk, the officers let her off with a trespass warning. The following day she came clean to police about her abuse, but refused to press charges due to Nico’s billionaire family’s hold over Palm Beach.
The following June, police were called to the home once again - this time Tinsley was found drunk & crying next to her mother’s car. She told police that she & Nico had gotten into an argument and he tried to smother her with a pillow. Nico chased her outside before keying her car, ripping off the windshield wipers, and the proceeding to break the windshield. When police looked inside the bedroom, they found blood stains on the pillow.
That December, police were called yet again, this time a neighbor reported seeing Nico tackle Tinsley and shove her head into the pavement. The most recent incident, however, was the first to make headlines. Last month, Tinsley was arrested for trespassing after she was found drunk & screaming outside Nico’s home, claiming he was in there with another woman.
Once her mugshot surfaced and stories of the abuse were finally made public, Nico’s mother claimed that Tinsley was a compulsive liar who was bitter Nico had left her, & threatened: “She’s going up against us, and she’s going down.”
Despite the threats, Tinsley recently told Page Six: “I don’t regret any of the decisions made. The one regret I have is that I stayed in an unhealthy relationship for as long as I did.”
Since her arrest, Tinsley’s returned to Instagram:
And she continues to work on her line for Pop Culture Living:
Hang in there Tinz! We’re rooting for you!
Olivia Palermo (or as Spencer Pratt says: “Palmero”)
While her former foe Tinsley has fallen from grace, since Socialite Rank’s demise Olivia has made the transition from Carrie White to Carrie Bradshaw.
As a child, Olivia attended the prestigious Nightingale-Bamford in New York, before returning to her birthplace of Connecticut to finish schooling.
Afterwards she started attending media classes at The New School (where she did nothing but sit and text) and interned at society magazine Quest. While interning, she was photographed at a charity auction by famed society photographer Patrick McMullan, and we all know what happened next!
Once SR shut down and she’d been left nailed to a virtual crucifix, things didn’t pick up for Liv. In August 2007, reports surfaced that her real estate developer dad had filed for bankruptcy. It wasn’t long after that she started blogging for Paper and rumors swirled that she was going to be part of the cast for Whitney Port’s Hills spinoff The City - rumors that she quickly shut down, claiming that she wanted to be a “serious actress.”
But a few months later the first promo for The City had been released and everybody realized Liv had been lying through her teeth the whole time. Shocking!
After its premiere, Liv’s presence in the gossip columns grew - and so did her family’s! Her cousin, and fellow City star Nevan, was exposed by Page Six in 2009 as a junkie who offered a prostitute oxy in exchange for a blow job. And it wasn’t his first offense either, it turns out he had a string of awry traffic stops, drug busts, and unpaid bills over the years - isn’t the Palermo clan classy?
But even as her dirty laundry was aired out in the press, she still held out hope that The City was just a stepping stone to a serious acting career, or “like, a jewelry line.” She explained that her commitment to reality TV was “a learning process,” and when news hit she was sticking around for another season, she explained that once she starts something, she doesn’t “stop in the middle of it’” - an inspiration to us all tbh.
Thanks to her icy demeanor and ability to make her costar Erin seethe (honestly the best part of the show), she became one of the most-searched names on New York Social Diary and other society websites, and most people tuned into the show just to hate-watch her as she bounced from fake fashion job (Diane von Furstenberg) to fake fashion job (Elle).
And while the serious acting thing never happened, she did sign to Wilhelmina to do some modeling alongside her boyfriend Johannes Huebl - whom she started dating in '08 after a split with Izzy Gold designer Brad Leinhardt earlier that year:
In 2014, the couple announced they were engaged in this hilariously over-the-top Insta video:
And that summer they got married!
Since The City went off the air, Olivia’s also followed through on her promises of designing a jewelry line:
And in 2011 she launched her own lifestyle blog (which I look at more often than I should). She’s also appeared as a guest judge on Project Runway and Britain and Ireland’s Next Top Model. Nowadays, she travels the world, goes to fashion shows, and looks stylish with her husband, all the while her one-time socialite peers have become irrelevant.
It looks like things worked out for Liv after all!
Lydia & Amanda Hearst
It goes without saying that the Hearst family had long-dominated headlines before the arrival of Lydia & Amanda. Lydia’s mom, Patty Hearst, was a media sensation - for reasons I’m sure you’re all familiar with - and Patty’s sister Anne, Amanda’s mother, was another prominent society girl who ran into a little trouble of her own. In the '70s she got busted for meth possession and served several months’ probation.
Despite their parents’ wild pasts, the girls had a relatively quiet upbringing. After high school, both Lydia & Amanda both decided to pursue modeling careers, but while Amanda kept a low-profile, Lydia didn’t shy away from the spotlight.
After scoring a cover for Vogue Italia in 2004, Lydia quickly became a favorite of designers & photographers. She was a Heatherette regular, walking for their fashion week shows alongside Paris Hilton & Naomi Campbell:
And she was even dating Heatherette designer Traver’s brother, Matt Rains, for a hot second:
She also caught the eye of Page Six, even scoring a job as a columnist for its short-lived magazine where she talked about everything from the difference between an “heiress” and a “socialite” (according to her, socialites are women who marry into money), how she’s so much better than Paris, or how her and her friends put together a Warhol-inspired “Factory 2.0”:
And a picture of “Factory 2.0”, since I know you’re dying to see it:
But in 2008 she quit her writing position after they published a column, claiming to be written by her, criticizing the Hearst company’s decision to host parties during a recession. Page Six quickly countered her outrage by exposing her writing process: she would send her drunken rambling to a reporter via email and they’d organize them into cohesive paragraphs.
After her resignation, she went back to dining at Butter with Michelle Trachtenberg, making out with Aubrey O'Day for press, posing naked in ’tasteful’ magazines & appearing in random music videos.
And who can forget her delightfully wooden cameo on Gossip Girl?
She also went through a string of famous men around that time, from porcupine-haired ex-Simpson/Patridge/Tess Taylor boytoy Ryan Cabrera, to the less drugged-up Olsen Twin’s ex Justin Bartha (He allegedly screamed at Lydia at an Oscar party shortly after their breakup - calling her a “bitch”), Mischa Barton’s large-balled ex Cisco Adler (NSFW!!!), and even Jared Leto! I feel like I got an STD from just writing that last sentence.
After a brief internship for Blackbook, she got tired of Manhattan and decided to fly out to L.A. to pursue acting, claiming her childhood memories of John Waters’ film sets inspired her to pursue a career in movies.
Once she touched down in Cali, one of her first rumored film roles was a leading part in a Lindsay Lohan biopic. She immediately released a statement, though, that the rumor couldn’t be farther from the truth (and Dina threatened to sue, so I’m sure that helped kill the project). While she waited to find her big break, she struck up a romance with Jeff Goldblum, who was 32 years her senior (her family was not fond of the pairing):
After a year, the two parted ways and Lydia decided to send Tumblr into a tizzy by rebounding with that alien Benedict Cumwhatever:
But thankfully she cured her temporary blindness and moved onto someone with more humanlike features, Nicky Hilton’s ex Kevin Connolly:
And after another yearlong romance, she was back on the market - but didn’t skip a beat before romancing TV host/actor/writer/producer/guy Chris Hardwick:
(He was on Zoey 101 once, I can’t believe I remember this).
After a few overnight stays at the Hearst Castle & some joint TV appearances, the lovebirds announced they were engaged:
And I think I read in a recent Us Weekly that they’re aiming for a summer wedding with a possible ’horror’ theme - you know I’ll keep you guys updated! Their save the date card was a recreation of a scene from The Walking Dead - how romantic:
As for recent TV/movie roles, Lydia appeared in Cabin Fever 3 a couple of years ago, and she was a coach on The Face alongside Naomi Campbell and Anne V:
Amanda, on the other hand, was much quieter than her cousin. While she modeled for brands like Ralph Lauren and Tommy Hilfiger, she attended college at Fordham, and refused to do any TV appearances like her socialite pals, claiming that rarely anybody comes off well on TV.
And unlike Lydia, her dating history has been a lot less colorful. Aside from canoodling with Chace Crawford at a party once in 2008, her dating choices haven’t really attracted the eyes of gossip columns. For a while she dated Lauren Santo Domingo’s brother-in-law Alejandro:
And after him she dated jewelry heir Luis Medina:
Job-wise, she interned at Spanish Cosmo for a minute before she scored a job as associate market editor of Marie Claire - owned by the family of course.
But her main passion these days is fighting puppy mills, alongside her team of super socialites (Fabiola, Nicky, Georgina Bloomberg, etc.):
Arden Wohl
Arden frequently ranked in SR’s Top 25, and many suspected that she enlisted her friends to write nice things about her in the site’s catty comment section, I mean, it’s all speculative, but with gems like: “She’s the only original thing out there”, “She has eyes with beautiful large lids which are a makeup artist’s dream”, and - the most cringeworthy - “She has a Warholian-like quality,” I’m sure she gave them a little coaching. Funny considering how she told a reporter she’d rather die than be lumped in with the Palermo set: “People have been telling me that I should get a publicist. I’m like, who am I, one of those girls? I hate those girls.”
Anyways, time for a little backstory on the headband-loving socialite: Arden’s claim to fame is being a Manhattan real estate heiress, and her sister once shoved her sober coach down a flight of stairs #LittleHeiressThings. Arden’s dad is a real-estate mogul, and her mom Denise, an ex-Marvel & DC employee, created a comic book series in 2007 called Seven, about fashionable Kabbalah-loving superheroes.
As for Arden, she graduated from NYU with a film degree, but she’s done nothing with it since, except brag about being besties with Sean Lennon, & Leelee Sobieski (who she founded the Art Production Fun Lab with).
In 2008, she got arrested in East Hampton for writing “Ralphy Lip-shits” in lipstick on a Ralph Lauren store (His real name is Ralph Lifshitz), and before cops arrived she tried snatching a few hand-held American flags that the store had on display for decoration.
*Not an actual picture of the arrest*
Since then she briefly attended the French Culinary Institute from 2009-2010, and had plans to start her own catering business, but these days Arden’s doing what any other socialite with zero aspirations does: fashion!
In 2014, Arden launched a vegan shoe-line, Cri De Coeur!
And for those wondering if she still wears headbands:
I’ll leave you with my favorite quote of hers:
“But you know, it just depresses me: Some girl named Peaches who lives in the Bronx—I don’t what she does—looks at this world and says, 'Oh wow.’ And I would never want to give off something that is an illusion, because you hurt people that way. And they’re already struggling so much—the people.”
I love people with no self-awareness!
Lauren Davis
Lauren was another semi-permanent sight in SR’s Top 25. Her claim to pointless fame is being the Poland Spring water bottle heiress, in addition to a short-lived stint at Network PR (I guess all socialites start out in PR?).
Eventually she just settled on Vogue like her other wealthy gal pals. She started off as a fashion assistant, and now she works as a contributing editor.
In 2008, she married beer heir Andres Santo Domingo in a Colombian wedding-extravaganza that Vogue called “the wedding of the year” in its March '08 issue. It even scored a whopping ten-page spread photographed by Gumby Elgort’s dad Arthur!
All of her socialite besties were in attendance, from the Tinz to Fabiola:
Nowadays she does what most other socialites do in the post-recession era, pose for obnoxious Insta pics with Derek Blasberg and show up to a charity event every now & then. In 2010 she launched the fashion retail site Moda Operandi:
And since then she’s caught the eye of Page Six on occasion, well, her family that is. In 2011, her hubby was busted for hitting someone with his Mercedes (accidentally, of course!) and scored a sweet $100 million lawsuit to go with it, and most recently, the couple tried to throw an engagement party for Andres’ brother in Colombia, but nobody showed up because guests were scared they’d catch Zika.
Fabiola Beracasa
If high society was Hollywood, Fabiola would’ve been the Nicole to Tinsley’s Paris.
A frequent Top 5-er & gossip column favorite, Fabiola’s stake in the society game came from being the daughter of Veronica Hearst (a Hearst by marriage). She attended boarding school in Switzerland, went to Boston College, and interned at Chanel’s Paris studio for several years. Yeah, the average childhood - nothing special.
Eventually, she decided to get an actual job. But rather than settling for PR - the standard gig for any rising social fixture - she decided to shake things up and work for a jewelry resale company named Circa, and eventually she became the creative director.
After her stint at Circa, she decided to pick up a job as a reporter for New York Magazine, a camera trailing her as she swayed her way to & from every fashion show and premiere in the 10021.
But just because she was stuck with fluff doesn’t mean she didn’t have a Peabody-worthy moment or two. Read her harrowing account of a 2007 trip to China:
“You felt the oppression there. I had a video camera and, you know, I was told by several of the media people from Fendi to be careful, that I may be questioned about it, and just like, the way the city is - these giant roads, these giant buildings - you feel the oppression! I can’t explain it in so many words, but you feel that people are very cautious about what they say… I’m going back in December for Christmas vacation!”
Katie Couric could never!
Fabi was even in talks to develop a reality TV show circa '08, but the project was scrapped. A shame since it would’ve been the perfect soul sibling to High Society. After all, with gossip items like asking a cop to check out your outfit when they arrived at your home over a noise complaint, or canceling all your social engagements for a week because your Chihuahua was hit by a car, I’m sure Fabiola would’ve been a fine fit for the small screen.
Anyways, around that time she also started dating Deutsche Bank money manager Jason Beckman. The two were inseparable for years, and one year for Halloween they dressed up as Di and Charles, except Fabi was Charles and J was Di - a match made in heaven:
In 2010, Jason put a ring on it while the two were in Cannes, and in 2014 the two married in a headline-making wedding set in Dubrovnik:
Guests included Vanessa Traina, Jessica Hart, Lauren Santo Domingo, and Margherita Missoni. Also, Snoop Dogg and Wyclef Jean performed:
Nowadays, Fabiola co-owns The Hole gallery in New York, in addition to producing a movie or two, like the recent MET Gala docu The First Monday In May. Here’s a recent pic:
Claire Bernard
Claire was a gala staple for quite some time in the mid-00s, rubbing elbows with Tinsley & co. Her dad Lewis served as the Chief Administrative & Financial Officer of Morgan Stanley, while Claire was just an aspiring writer taking classes at Colombia. She was also was rumored to be a little more desperate than the rest of the girls to improve her SR ranking.
Nowadays, she’s the Vice President of the Mariposa Foundation - a group aiming to spread education for girls around the world. She also ran a short-lived blog (only 2 posts) for the Huffington Post, and she’s also worked as a production assistant on a ton of films, ranging from An Inconvenient Truth to Garfield 2. Here’s a semi-recent picture:
Julia Restoin Roitfeld
Julia was born into fashion royalty as her mother, Carine Roitfeld, was the former editor-in-chief of Vogue Paris. She was another semi-permanent fixture on SR’s Top 25, although some were surprised she didn’t rank higher.
While she isn’t as scandalous as some of the other girls, she’s definitely been in quite a few magazines as she’s landed campaigns for Tom Ford, H&M, & Lancôme amongst many others.
In 2011, she designed a lingerie line for Kiki de Montparnasse.
And in 2009 she began a long-term relationship with Croation model Robert Konjic.
The two welcomed a daughter together - Romy - in May 2012, but the following year the two split after four years of dating. Now she works as a graphic designer for several brands, in addition to running some motherhood blog/website/whatever.
Camilla Al Fayed
Camilla was a bigger name than most on the gala circuit. Her father, Mohamed Al Fayed, was the owner of Harrods, and her brother Dodi was a casualty of the infamous Princess Di crash. Despite the long family history, she was still able to make a name for herself as she was frequently spotted at clubs with tabloid favorites like Paris, Lindsay, Mischa, & Kimbo Stewart!
In 2006, she interned at British Vogue for a curiously brief four weeks, then rumors swirled she was hooking up with Brandon Davis/Greasy Bear - who reportedly bought a house in London to be closer to her.
But then Camilla had an epiphany. After a friend’s six-day-old baby died, she told a magazine that she wanted to devote her life to charity from that point on, instead of being known as the ’party girl’. The following year, she announced she was pregnant, but refused to name the baby daddy, and continued to maintain a low-profile until 2011 when she decided to purchase a 51% stake in Issa - a clothing brand that had soared in popularity after Kate Middleton started wearing it the previous year.
She continued to work for the brand for several years while raising her children Numair and Luna, but recently she’s turned her back on fashion and decided to open a “plant-based” restaurant called Farmacy in Notting Hill. And by recently, I mean last month.
Here’s a recent picture:
Ali Wise
Ali’s claim to society came from being Dolce & Gabana’s PR director & the girlfriend of hotelier Jason Pomeranc (who runs SoHo’s Sixty Hotel).
But scandal erupted in July 2009 when she was busted for hacking into the voicemail of interior designer & rival socialite Nina Freudenberger!
The story goes that Ali used Spoofcard, which lets you send fake caller ID info with your calls, to bypass the security features on Nina’s voicemail and spy on her from January to March 2008. Why? It turns out Ali cheated on her boyfriend Jason with Nina’s boyfriend Josh Deutch, and when Nina caught word she told Jason (So many names, try to keep up) and he told Ali they were dunzo. An enraged Ali thought the only logical thing to do would be to invade someone’s privacy for the course of months. But it turns out Nina wasn’t her only target! Right after Ali was charged with computer trespassing & eavesdropping, three other victims of her spying came forward, and they all seemed to have one thing in common - they’ve been with Ali’s ex-boyfriends.
But amidst scandal, Ali had her loyal defenders, such as Alice + Olivia founder Stacey Bendet who claimed that what Ali did wasn’t illegal in the slightest and the justice system is totally unfair. Another Ali apologist was Tobey Maguire’s wife, and jewelry designer, Jen Meyer, who claimed Nina was just lime green jello. But Dolce & Gabana didn’t agree with the girls and after the new surge of charges hit Page Six, Ali was given the boot. Lost, angry, and defeated, a fallen Ali decided to find solace in Twitter through such difficult times:
“when all else fails,find the humor in the situation. because really,it’s silly-though painful-how we let our egos get the best of us"Y.Berg
— ali wise (@aliwise) July 27, 2009
And she decided to make a return to the party scene, despite her tattered reputation:
But if we’ve learned anything from Lizzie Grubman, society is very forgiving, and it wasn’t long after the charges surfaced that Ali copped a plea deal which entailed: 2 years of probation, 300 hours of community service, and a $1,000 fine.
Since then she’s continued to make event appearances, work in PR, and now she’s found love with fellow socialite & snowboarder John de Neufville. They have a kid together, too:
Here’s Ali at Nicky Hilton’s wedding last year with Bijou and Sarah Howard:
Alexandra & Theodora Richards
Thanks to the fact their dad is Rolling Stones’ guitarist Keith Richards and their mom is Patti Hensen, the Richards sisters were a little more edgy than their socialite counterparts.
They made their fashion debut in 2002 with a Tommy Hiliger campaign, alongside fellow rocker spawn Lizzy Jagger:
And soon after they began covering magazines like Nylon & Elle:
In addition to working the runway for everybody from Heatherette to PPQ:
As the girls’ modeling careers took off, they became staples of the Manhattan social scene & were frequently featured on SR amongst their pals Genevieve and Olivia Palermo.
And they were cool enough to hang with the likes of Cory Kennedy, too!/p>
In 2010, Alexandra posed for French Playboy:
And despite their parents, the girls remained mostly scandal-free, well, until Theodora was arrested in 2011 for scrawling ”T ♥ A“ on the wall of a SoHo nunnery.
When police arrived, they found oxycodone and pot in her purse, causing her to blurt out: ”I hope I don’t get in trouble for this.“
She ended up being sentenced to two days of community service, but her problems didn’t stop there. In 2013, speculation arose over her thin frame:
And last October she checked into Silver Hill Hospital to get clean. She checked out in November, and has been looking much healthier since:
As for Alexandra, the past few years she’s picked up a hobby of DJing:
Byrdie Bell
Byrdie’s society status came from her father, Ted Bell, who was the Creative Director of Young & Rubicam - one of the world’s largest advertising agencies. Her mother also has some ties to the Norwegian royal family. Byrdie’s rise, however, began in 2006 when she started appearing at events with BFF Liv.
Pretty soon she scored a modeling contract with Ford, and started booking movie roles, such as a cameo in Mischa Barton’s 2009 classic Homecoming (See: Horror Movies With Your Tabloid Faves).
By 2007, she was so buzzed about that even Page Six did a profile on her! In it she described herself as the anti-Tinsley, with her interests lying in video games & French porn. Edgy!
Since then, she’s continued to land bit parts in movies, including a cameo in Martin Scorsese’s Rolling Stones docu Shine A Light, & most recently a recurring role in the Bravo series Odd Mom Out:
And while actively auditioning, she stated attending NYU in 2010. She even made the Dean’s List - you go Byrdie!
Picked up my NYU student ID #back2school #matriculated #itsofficial
— Byrdie Bell (@ByrdieBell) September 1, 2010
Here’s a recent picture:
Margherita Missoni
Despite her popularity in New York society, Margherita actually grew up in Italy, near her fashion house-founding grandparents. She moved to New York to attend college at Columbia where she decided to become an actress, while still promoting the family brand of course.
Despite the famous last name, she was only able to land parts in short films:
Shortly after SR was finished, she decided she was finished with New York, too. She moved back to Milan and decided to join the design team of the Missoni brand. In 2011, she got engaged to race car driver Eugenio Amos, and the following year the two married in Brunello:
She designed her own dress, in case any fashionistas reading this post were curious:
And now she has two kids!
Here’s a recent picture:
Zani Gugelmann
Zani’s rise to prominence began when she moved to New York from Connecticut in the early '00s. It wasn’t long before she started scoring modeling gigs, becoming the face of Bill Blass and Judith Leiber.
Around that time she launched a jewelry line - Filigrina by Zani - inspired by her Peruvian roots, and she had quite a few celeb clients too! Take a look at the website:
Anyways, she quickly became BFFs with Tinsley, Ivanka, & the rest:
And now she continues to do what she always did: show up at events, make jewelry, and look stylish:
Here’s a recent picture:
Rachel Roy
Rachel first hit the social scene when she moved to New York to work as a stylist at Rocawear in the early '00s. She quickly rose through the ranks and became creative director of the women’s and children’s divisions by 2004, in addition to meeting future husband Damon Dash.
That year she launched her own label, with backing from Damon. The brand became so popular that by 2008 she sold a 50% share to the Jones Apparel Group (now Nine West Holdings) - who controlled lines like Nine West and Anne Klein. Rachel’s mega-success as a designer made her a favorite of SR and she was a frequent fixture in the exclusive Top 25 from 2006 - 2007.
But with all of the success, she still ran into some financial trouble. In mid-2008, Eastern Savings Bank filed a suit against Rachel & Damon after they failed to make payments on their nearly $80K-a-month mortgage, and later that year things went from bad to worse when Damon’s Chevy Tahoe was seized after failing to make monthly lease payments.
In early 2009, Rachel slapped him with the divorce papers and the two called it quits. She continued to find success in fashion afterwards, and made several TV appearances, from Project Runway and America’s Next Top Model, to fellow SR alum Olivia Palermo’s The City (Sorry Whit, we both know she stole the show).
But in recent years she’s received quite a bit of negative attention after rumors swirled that she was Jay-Z’s other woman. A MET Gala showdown and lyrical diss later, Rachel certainly hasn’t made it easier on herself. On Instagram she recently posted a photo of herself with a caption admitting to being the elusive ”Becky“ mentioned in Beyonce’s Sorry:
Immediately, Beyonce’s fans swarmed the comments - well, the ones that didn’t get lost and stumble upon Rachael Ray and Rachel Zoe’s profiles. But Roy put the rumors to rest with a statement to People:
”I want to put the speculation and rumors to rest. My Instagram post was meant to be fun and lighthearted, it was misunderstood as something other than that. There is no validity to the idea that the song references me personally. There is no truth to the rumors.“
Others have suggested the past month that Rachel is probably on Bey & Jay-Z’s payroll & that this is all some smart publicity stunt to drum up attention and album sales, and most recently news broke that Rachel’s emails were hacked - yikes!
Ivanka Trump
As SR said, 2006 was the year of the socialite - and it was also the year of Ivanka.
As a teen, Ivanka had gained some recognition as a model, walking down runways for Versace & Thierry Mugler, in addition to posing for Elle & Glamour.
She didn’t stick with it, though, and after that her only notable media appearance had been a starring role in the 2003 documentary Born Rich, directed by Johnson & Johnson heir Jamie Johnson. The documentary basically focused on a bunch of rich kids saying stupid shit, with Ivanka’s costars including Georgina Bloomberg & Luke Weil.
Afterwards, she graduated from the Wharton School at UPenn and began working for her dad at the Trump Organization, quickly becoming the Vice President of Real Estate Development - obviously because of her hard work.
By 2006, she was even starring alongside her dad on The Apprentice, catapulting her to fame that most of her socialite peers could only dream of. Pretty soon she was scoring magazine covers left and right, and making appearances everywhere from Jay Leno to The View.
And with her newfound celeb status came some celeb boyfriends, such as Lance Armstrong & Topher Grace, whom she was both linked to that year (Her other exes include Greg Hirsch & 'Born Rich’ co-producer James Gubelmann).
But with the wave of newfound fame, she was anxious to distance herself from another headline-making blonde heiress, telling the London Express in 2007 that she’s ”nothing“ like ”party kid“ Paris Hilton, and that she works ”13-hour days“ and even has her own mortgage!
Forget the mortgage Ivanka, the real story is that you paid for a boob and nose job all by yourself! You go girl!
In 2007, she launched her jewelry line The Ivanka Trump Collection and got groped by Andy Dick:
That year she also started dating fellow real estate heir & Observer owner Jared Kusher.
Initially Ivanka told the press that the two were only ”friends,“ well, friends that fly to St. Barts and share hotel rooms together. But by 2008 rumors were swirling that she was converting to Judaism for him. The following summer she announced via Twitter that they got engaged:
That fall they sealed the deal at the Trump National Golf Club in New Jersey, with guests receiving complimentary flip flops with the bride & groom’s names.
2009 also welcomed Ivanka’s own book The Trump Card: Playing to Win in Work and Life!
She also tried to start a line of lunch foods at one point. It went as well as you think it would.
But not everything was business in Ivanka’s life. In 2010 she had her very own stalker - Justin Massler.
He often switched between loving her, and completely hating her. He set up an Ivanka fan blog in early 2010, including his own Ivanka poetry and comics:
But on Twitter he showed a completely different side of himself, going on long rants and threatening to ruin her brand:
After recording a video of himself threatening to kill humself in one of Ivanka’s stores, he was jailed for six months. But last November, Justin was busted again, this time for sending an email to Jared’s brother Joshua (who’s dating Karlie Kloss #funfacts).
Aside from that mess, Ivanka’s continued to expand her fashion line. Adding shoes and handbags to her collection, but not without controversy. In 2011, Derek Lam accused Ivanka of stealing one of his shoe designs - you be the judge:
And as recent as a few months ago, another shoe brand - Aquazzura - accused her of stealing one of their designs. No word yet if the company plans on suing. And in more bad fashion news, 20K of Ivanka’s Chinese-manufactured scarves were recently recalled due to being easily flammable. Yikes!
Aside from that, Ivanka’s also been by her father’s side throughout his campaign, even as she was pregnant with her third child. And if you’re wondering her stance on her father’s views, she thinks he’s a total advocate for women.
And probably the most important thing Ivanka’s done this decade was making a cameo on Gossip Girl:
I’ll leave you with my favorite quote of hers:
”I look at my brothers and myself and I’m, like, really proud of that fact that nobody’s a drug addict, nobody’s driving around chasing women, snorting coke.“
Yep, your family’s so much worse.
Jessica Joffe
Jessica started making the rounds in the early '00s. Her father was the publisher/ed